


Chris Just Really Loves Sharks, OK?

by entirely_too_tall



Series: Chowderweek 2017 [5]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: San Jose Sharks, Sharks, chowderweek, just all the sharks, shark fin soup, shark week, talking about sharks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-10-15
Packaged: 2019-01-17 22:19:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12375300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entirely_too_tall/pseuds/entirely_too_tall
Summary: He really really loves sharks.





	Chris Just Really Loves Sharks, OK?

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Chowderweek 2017 Day 5: Sharks
> 
> You know how in Moby Dick it just goes on about whales and their anatomy and how to hunt and process them? Yeah, this is gonna be like that.
> 
> Check Please and its characters belong to Ngozi, I am only expanding upon it for our collective non-commercial pleasure.

Chris _loves_ shark fin soup. It’s so unfortunate that he does, because he craves it sometimes, and he knows he can’t have it. Because sharks are so awesomecool and deserve to live.

 

But they taste _so good_.

 

Actually, they don’t really taste _that_ good. They’re kinda bland, and have this strange texture. Like gloopy, is the best word for it really.

 

His uncle showed him the whole process once. He managed to get real shark fin, like the scales and skin was still on and everything. And he spent days processing it.

 

Real shark skin is really really rough. Like tear-up-your-skin rough. Chris learned this the hard way. Shark scales aren’t really scales. They’re denticles, literally teeth on the skin. They have ridges and help guide water and make them swim faster, but those ridges are sharp and can cut you up. Chris learned to respect sharks and keep his distance from their skin since he tried to touch that fin his uncle brought home.

 

It smelled like any piece of seafood, really. Salty, briny, kinda stinky. His uncle scraped off all the scales and soaked the shark fin for days. Actually, he boiled it for hours and soaked it, changed the water, and repeated it until it was soft and slippery, which took many days in total. Then he picked off the skin and harder basal cartilage until the softer fin cartilage remained.

 

Sharks are incredible. They’ve been practically unchanged since before bony fish even appeared. Osseous fish, the ones with bones, and everything else with bones, came after sharks, which have no bones, only cartilage. They have been so successful in their aeons of history, only to be wiped out by people eating their fins for soup. Soup! It’s preposterous. 

 

In the soup, the softened fin cartilage is boiled with ginger and stock to remove it’s ocean odor, and after a few hours is drained and you get this tasteless, odorless, gloopy pile of fin. His uncle said that the special thing about it is the texture, nothing you can get from the imitation with glass noodles and starch. Like how birds nest is so unique. And Chris _gets_ it. The one his uncle made was the best he ever had. EVER. He’s been disappointed ever since, at every wedding. It’s just not the same.

 

But god he doesn’t want to kill anymore sharks. 

 

People think he loves the San Jose Sharks because he’s from the Bay Area. That’s only half true. The real reason is because they’re _sharks_. He’s been writing to them for _years_ , saying how they could help with shark preservation if they just _gave a damn_ about their mascot animal.

 

Sharks are dying horrifically. Chris has seen the videos. They’re hauled up on deck, their fins sawed off, and the rolled off back into the water. Where they sink because they can no longer swim. And not only that, they suffocate because many sharks are ramjet breathers, meaning if they don’t keep swimming, they can’t run water over their gills and die. Either they starve, or suffocate. It’s cruel! When Chris found out, he cried so hard. Both because of the suffering of the sharks but also because now he can’t have any shark fin soup anymore.

 

Now, every Shark Week, he just turns off all the media because have you seen it? It’s ridiculous! [Sharks kill fewer people](https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/fish/isaf/worldwide-summary/) worldwide per year than [sitting under falling coconuts](http://www.brainjet.com/random/1092/9-unexpectedly-high-death-statistics-you-wouldnt-believe/) for god’s sake! And yet TV and movies keep trying to make sharks this deadly killing machine, which ok it is, but not to humans! It pisses Chris off so bad. 

 

He campaigns for Shark Week every year in school. They always expect some overexcited dumb surfer dude kid to talk about how dangerous sharks are the first time, but Chris always surprises them with passionate speeches about oceanic conservation and the importance of apex predators. Did they know that without sharks, coral eating fish are contributing to the demise of coral reefs? No! Of course not. Saving sharks saves coral reefs, but all they think about is “SHARK = DANGER”.

 

Somehow, every year, it also devolves into “Set Sharks Free, Shut SeaWorld Down”. So many sharks have died trying to be captured for show, and still they keep trying. Reef sharks are fine, they can be kept in artificial reefs, but people always want to see the big open-sea sharks. Chris would love to see them too, if it weren’t for the fact that they keep [bumping their noses into the tank walls and injuring themselves](https://www.seaworldofhurt.com/features/sharks-dont-belong-at-seaworld/) and eventually dying of cabin fever. Aquarium fever. They need space! Miles and miles of space just to swim and stay healthy. 

 

At least the Aquarium of the Bay doesn’t try to keep big open-sea sharks and their Shark Week is pretty good and not scare mongering. Chris would have volunteered at AotB each summer, if his parents didn’t send him to smart kid camp to do math and science and things like that. Maybe this summer, he can go back and intern on their media team, or web dev team, or even DBM, data input, whatever! Chris just wants to save the sharks. Better yet, get on the SJS intern team and fix their godawful SharkWeek promos, work with the AotB and finally get his favorite team to put their voices behind their favorite animal. That would be ‘swasome.

**Author's Note:**

> Can you tell that I, too, love sharks a lot? I loved shark fin soup as a kid. I loved it so much.
> 
> Thank you for reading. Come yell at me on [tumblr](http://ohjustletmewriteinpeace.tumblr.com).


End file.
